THE first time I watched the advance video for “Bob Patterson,” Jason Alexander’s new show, I had a few chuckles, and then I dismissed it as yet another dopey, mildly amusing show.

That was the day before our world, in the form of the World Trade Center, literally came tumbling down.

I watched “Bob Patterson” again yesterday – weeks after the tragedy – and it didn’t seem like the same show.

I hate to keep pinning everything on this event in our lives but, frankly, it’s impossible not to – it seems to have colored everything – and probably will for the foreseeable future, anyway.

I know for sure that I didn’t laugh out loud the first time I watched “Bob Patterson,” and I know for sure that I did yesterday.

Maybe it’s that I’m so badly in need of a laugh these days – and maybe that’s what we all need right now, a break for a couple of laughs.

Problem is, we all feel so guilty and depressed right now that just even thinking about getting back to anything frivolous seems, if not disrespectful, then dopey.

And because of it, most of the new sitcoms – which we would have accepted as background noise in our lives – now seem ridiculous. Not that they weren’t before, but the bar’s been raised.

But you know what? Maybe it’s not so awful to take a bit of time out from the horror confronting us onscreen every minute for some silly, goofy, sight gags and mindless prattle. And you get that with “Bob Patterson.”

Bob (Jason Alexander) is a self-help guru who is secretly full of self-doubt. He’s too short, he’s pudgy, he’s got a hairline that’s receding faster than the shoreline at Fire Island, and he’s got an ex-wife, Janet (Jennifer Aspen), who ran off to find herself, but who keeps finding herself back at his door.

Unfortunately, while she was gone learning to be a horse whisperer, she also was on a quest to find her real sexuality. Having discovered it, she has come back home to Bob to practice celibacy.

Bob’s also got a creative block, and an agent/partner, Landau (Robert Klein), who’s always looking to make more, more, more money, and who therefore doesn’t believe in creative blocks. In other words, it’s George Costanza with a scam that has finally worked – if he doesn’t screw it up royally.

In the first episode, Landau has hired a new assistant, the newly wheelchair-bound klutz Claudia (Chandra Wilson). When Bob gets a look at her, and she drops everything off the desk, he freaks. He says she can’t work for him.